


brother, i am in between

by StarlightSystem



Category: Gravity Falls, Mother 3
Genre: Alternate Universe - Transcendence (Gravity Falls), Demons, Gen, No one dies but past character death is discussed, Reincarnation, Spoilers for the end of Mother 3, Trauma is discussed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:13:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27107023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarlightSystem/pseuds/StarlightSystem
Summary: In a field of sunflowers, Lucas comes across a girl named Mabel searching for her lost brother. Which was a funny coincidence, because that's just what he was doing too.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 30





	brother, i am in between

**Author's Note:**

> A Mother 3 x Gravity Falls [Transcendence AU](https://transcendence-au.tumblr.com/) crossover. Also known as me coming through on my threat of crossing TAU over with everything I like. Contains spoilers for the end of Mother 3.

For a while, it was just Lucas and the sunflowers.

The field stretched on in every direction. No matter how far Lucas ran, it never seemed to have an end. Neither did it seem to have anything else in it. Just him, and endless rows of elbow-high sunflowers.

At some point, he gave up running. He was sure to tire himself out that way and then he’d never get anywhere. So instead, he strolled aimlessly through the field, feeling the flowers brush by his arms as he walked. Every once in a while, he took a break to lie down and watch the clouds drift by in the light blue sky. It filled him with a sense of peace that was weirdly at odds with the pit in his stomach. A dull, aching feeling that made him keep turning over and expecting to see someone watching the sky with him.

It was on one of those breaks that he heard the shout.

“Arrgh! Get off me, you stupid overgrown plants!”

Lucas bolted up, receiving a face full of sunflower, and he sputtered to get the petals out of his mouth. He jumped to his feet and looked around in all directions.

There, in the distance. Someone was there. Another person.

A person who seemed to be getting attacked by a group of flailing trees.

Lucas ran in their direction, feeling something swell in his chest. Maybe his long search was over. He wasn’t alone in this place after all.

One of the trees moved in front of the person who’d shouted, blocking them from his view. They shouted again, then grunted like they’d been winded.

Lucas’s face contorted in anger at the sound. He cupped his hands together at his waist and reached into his reservoir of PSI just like Ionia had shown him. There was a strangled gasp, amidst a blur of strange gurgling that likely came from the tree monsters, and Lucas launched at them.

“PK Love!” he shouted, thrusting his hands in front of him.

The air became a blinding display of vivid, flashing colors accompanied by a high pitched shriek. The monsters moaned in agony and then - it stopped.

It was just blue skies and sunflowers again. Blue skies, sunflowers, him… and the girl in front of him.

“Dipper?” she asked, still crumpled on the ground from being attacked. “Dipper, is that you?”

Lucas didn't know what that meant. He kneeled beside her and offered a hand to help her up, which she accepted. With the girl on her feet, hands on her knees and panting heavily, Lucas managed to get a better look at her. She looked to be just about his own age, twelve or thirteen, and she had long brown hair that hung limp around her. When she glanced up, the look on her face was, well, not disappointed to see him, but at the very least surprised.

"Oh. You're not Dipper." She coughed, her lungs seeming to struggle to keep up with her. "Sorry. I saw the magic fireworks and thought… But that’s okay. Thanks for saving me.”

Lucas smiled, and said of course. He was glad to help.

Her breathing stabilizing, the girl stood fully upright and looked him over. “That’s some cool magic you’ve got there! What’s your name?”

It was Lucas, of course.

"Nice to meet ya, Lucas!" Mabel said, shaking his hand even though he hadn't offered it to her. “Hey, I'm looking for my brother. Have you seen him?"

Lucas shook his head. He hadn't seen anyone else in the fields -- not until her.

Which was a shame because he just so happened to be looking for his brother too.

Mabel's eyes went wide. "Oh wow, really? What a coinkydink! You wanna look for our brothers together? They've gotta be out there somewhere, yaknow?"

He did know. He didn't know how, but he knew, like an itch in the back of his mind.

"So, what's the story with all these sunflowers?" Mabel said, starting to walk away. Lucas paused, then scrambled to catch up with her and walk by her side. "They're super pretty and all, but I kinda have no idea how I got here. I can’t really remember anything that’s happened since like, forever ago? I dunno -- do you know what’s going on?"

Lucas had to admit he was sort of in the dark about that too. He knew he hadn't come from the sunflowers -- he knew he had a whole life and past before them. But if he stepped back in his memory from the present, the field had no end. On and on and on it went.

“Oh well. I’m sure my bro-bro will know when we find him and then he’ll rub it in our faces that he’s so much smarter than us, haha.”

She told him stories about her brother, how he was a know-it-all dork with an irresponsible amount of magic. She described sweaters she’d knitted for him, and enchanted presents he’d made for her. She talked about how he’d helped her raise her kids, how she was there for him when even their parents turned against them, how they dismantled evil cults together and that she was really good at fighting actually and if she’d had her bat with her those tree monsters wouldn’t have stood a chance!

Lucas listened to this all, offering ooohs and ahhhs and chuckles when appropriate. But each story pulled him into his own memories. Some of them were nice -- the old ones, anyway -- but some of them made him think about stuff he didn’t want to think about.

Like how there was a reason he couldn’t find his brother.

“But enough about Dipdops,” Mabel said. “You wanna tell me about your brother? What’s his name?”

Lucas gulped. It was Claus, of course.

“Cool! What’s he like? A big dork like my bro-bro?”

He shook his head. Claus was adventurous, Claus was daring, Claus was thrill-seeking. Claus was the one who’d go explore the woods at night while Lucas stayed at home and played with Boney. Claus was the one who knew everyone’s name in town, whereas Lucas was too meek to make quite as many friends. Lucas admitted he used to look up to him.

“Used to?” Mabel screwed up her face. “Whatta ya mean? Did he turn evil or something? Haha.” The laugh sounded hollow.

He laughed too. Haha. Right. That would be. Ridiculous.

The point remained that Lucas missed him an awful lot. And he couldn’t explain it but he just had this _feeling_ that if he searched long enough, he’d find him.

“I know what you mean,” Mabel said. “Don’t worry. We’ll find our brothers.”

They kept walking. As they chatted, the sun began to move, and then the sky gradually changed in color, turning a deep orange that filtered through the sunflowers like honey. Mabel had a lot to say about that, and lamented her inability to photograph the scenery for her scrapbook. Whatever that meant. Still, it was nice to listen to her ramble, and it seemed like it would last that way for a while.

Then, it happened.

Over the horizon, a dark figure rose into view. The setting sun cast the figure entirely into shadow, with only a pair of wings discernable from the rest of the shapeless mass. It hung there, seeming like a part of the background -- a hole cut out of the sky.

Lucas held his breath.

He might've just been tired of walking so long, or nostalgic from talking to Mabel, but he imagined that in a moment, he'd see the sun glint off a cybernetic helmet. He pictured a hand holding a yellow rod, electricity crackling at the edges, filled with a fury that wasn't his. He remembered Claus's smell, like a hazy dream calling out to him.

Like a dream, it ended, and a floating top hat resolved into view above the figure.

It came closer, and Lucas could see that it wasn't cast into shadow -- it was literally void black, with yellow glowing lines etched throughout like brickwork. He felt a chill in the air, a cold sense of dread emanating from the figure, whatever it was. Whoever it was.

"Dipper!" Mabel yelled, and Lucas looked her way, having momentarily forgotten she was there. She jumped up and down, waving her arms wildly, squealing in fevered excitement. "Over here!"

The figure jolted, and a pair of golden eyes made themselves apparent. "M̤̲͚͞a̬̺̜͕̖b҉e̵l̢̯̖͎!̭̖͞"

Mabel rushed past Lucas, and the figure -- Dipper -- flew at her. With each flap of his wings the blackness peeled away from his skin. Flecks of paper-thin ichor fluttered by Lucas's head, exerting a palpable force on his mind.

Dipper embraced Mabel, pulling her into the air and spinning her around. She laughed at that. Pretended to fight back, bapped him on the head -- _in the chest like a strike of lightning_ \-- tousled his hair when they landed -- _laid him down after he choked out his final breath_.

"I'm so glad I found you," Dipper said, and there were tears in his eyes. His eyes, which had remained black and gold even when most of the rest of him had taken on a human appearance. "I thought- I thought you weren't going to visit me this time. After what I had to do to you before you..."

He trailed off, and Mabel cocked her head. “What you did to me?”

“Uh… don’t you remember?”

She shook her head. “No idea what you’re talkin’ about, bro-bro.” He opened his mouth, but she didn’t give him a chance to speak. “In a minute, in a minute. First, I wanna introduce you to my new friend Lucas!”

Mabel waved in Lucas’s direction. He waved back, getting ready to run over and meet Mabel’s brother formally, but then Dipper’s head snapped round to look at him and the sky went dark in an instant. Dipper lifted up and flew at him, making the pounding in Lucas's head get worse and worse. He'd never met, seen, or even imagined anything with as much PSI as Dipper seemed to have. It was overpowering. He felt like he was going to pass out. He’d seen this before.

It was Claus, masked and guarded, flying at him with weapon raised, his heart nothing but a cold shell.

It was Claus in the cave under the tower, his helmet landing somewhere on the ground behind him, eyes full of regret, aiming his attack at the Franklin Badge...

"Stop!" Mabel cried, and Dipper froze in midair. "Don’t hurt him! He's not a threat! He's just looking for his brother."

Panting, Mabel caught up with him, and blocked him from moving any further. Up close, Lucas could see that her face looked just like Dipper's, minus the eyes and the ears.

Of course. They were twins too.

“Do you need help getting up?” Mabel asked.

Lucas blinked. He was on the ground. Why was he on the ground? When had he fallen? Clutching his head, he accepted Mabel’s hand and thanked her for the help.

“I’m so sorry about this,” she said, patting him on the back. Dipper hung behind, perhaps having noticed the effect his presence had on Lucas. “Bro-bro does this sometimes -- you should’ve seen when I introduced him to my boyfriend and Dipper threw him against the wall! Just cause he was a reincarnation of Dipper’s worst enemy or whatever. It happens. He’s really a nice guy, though! I promise. There was this one time -”

“You’re looking for your brother?” Dipper said, interrupting Mabel’s story.

Lucas nodded.

"But that doesn't make sense." Chewing his lip, Dipper floated to the ground, crushing a sunflower under his shoes. "You're not supposed to be here yet. It's not your time."

His time? What did that mean? When would "the time" come?

Dipper sighed, and Lucas noticed that his voice had a weird echo to it. “This place we’re in is called the Mindscape. It’s sort of an in-between realm, made out of magic and thought. But you shouldn’t be able to just come here like this because you’re still alive.”

Lucas could see Mabel stiffen. The smile faded from her eyes. But he was too distracted to pay too much attention to her, because he could remember something. He remembered, a long time ago, seeing his mother’s ghost in a field of sunflowers. He wasn’t supposed to be there then, either.

It made sense, in a weird way. But if living people weren’t supposed to come here, what did that mean about Dipper?

Dipper scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. “Uh. I’m not, exactly, uh, human. There _are_ some special creatures that live in the Mindscape and,” (his voice started to get quieter and quieter with each word) “well, I’m one of them, because, uh. I’m a demon.”

Lucas gaped at him. Demons were real? He’d heard about them from Ionia, heard her stories about creatures even more powerful than her and her sisters. Demons were supposed to be blackhearted entities made entirely out of PSI, limitless in their cruelty and inconceivable to human minds. He’d been sure she was just trying to scare him with that story. But now it turned out they actually existed, and he’d somehow wandered into their home?

“Heh. Yeah, I guess.” Dipper swallowed nervously and played with his shirt cuffs. “That’s sorta why I flew at you when I saw you. Most of the things that live here aren’t very nice. I didn't realize you were just a human.”

Mind still reeling, Lucas tried to consolidate that with everything that had happened since he’d been in the sunflower field. He had indeed fought a group of not-very-nice tree monsters. His eyes slid to Mabel, who was standing stock still beside her brother. Was she a demon too?

Dipper flinched. “No! No, she isn’t. She’s human, just like you. It’s just that she’s…”

His voice trailed off into an awkward silence, and Mabel sniffed.

"Oh yeah," she said, softly. "I'm dead, aren't I."

Dipper embraced her again, and there was no laughter or revelation this time. "Yeah," he murmured. "I’m sorry."

"I died," Mabel said, her voice raspy and thin. As she spoke, her appearance shifted away from that of a 12-year old girl, becoming more like that of a woman in her mid-30's, gray before her age, with thick glasses and a scar bisecting her face. "I remember it now. I wasn't Mabel this time. My name was Mercy. I made biotech for Elliot; I was part of his coup. I was one of his evil cronies."

"I̖̩͟t̺͎̪̺̺̬̕ ͓̠͎̤w͍̘̝̺a͉̹s̻͚̹͎͓̺͙n̠͇͖͍͚͇̭'҉̜̹̝͈̙̝̣t͉͖̟͖̼̳̳ ͉͉̱̘y͍͚̟͚̗̱͞o͎͓̩̠u̺̪ŕ͇̲̜̝ ͉f̧̼̣ą̘u̶̩͍̭l͔t̸̤͈̠̺̹," Dipper blurted. "You or the others. The poison he gave you ate away at your mind until there was almost nothing left. You couldn’t control what you were doing. It doesn't mean you were a bad person."

She cracked a smile. "I know. There wasn’t enough of me left to save. That's why you had to kill me."

“I’m sorry, Mizar,” Dipper said. He was sniffling and it was starting to get hard to understand what he was saying. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry -”

Lucas's head was throbbing. It was too much so he squeezed his eyes shut but that only made it worse because then all he could see was Mercy in a pigmask uniform and Dipper fending her off with a stick.

_“There isn’t enough left of me to save,” Claus had said. “I’m going to where Mom is now. I hope we meet again someday.”_

It didn’t have to turn out that way. Why did things have to turn out that way?

When he opened his eyes again, the light from the setting sun made it look like both of the figures before him had bright orange hair.

"You did what you had to, and now I'm in the Mindscape," Mabel -- Mercy? -- was saying over top her brother’s weeping. "Because I like to visit you before I go back to the reincarnation cycle. It all makes sense again." She chuckled. "A-doy."

Dipper snorted a little at that -- the sound came out wet and snotty. "Yeah. That's it." His face fell again. “But seriously. I understand if you don’t want to hang out with me this time. I mean I _killed_ you. Aren’t you upset?”

Mercy shook her head. “Nuh-uh. Elliot killed me, not you. You said it yourself -- that poison hollowed me out. It was barely me at all by the end. You were doing me a favor!” She wrapped Dipper in a tight hug, and he looked weirdly small now that she was in her 30’s. “I don’t blame you. I’m just… sad things had to turn out that way.”

He wiped his eyes, leaving red marks on his face from the claws Lucas only then noticed he had. “Me too. At least we’ve got some time together now, right?”

She grinned and let go of him. “Yep! I don’t know how much time I have left before I’ve gotta go back to the cycle, so let’s cut the blubbering and party, bro-bro!”

Dipper smiled too, although his eyes still seemed puffy. “You’re right. What’s past is past. The future’s what matters now.”

Lucas startled. Really? That was it?

“I hope this isn’t gonna be like the time when we were playing mini-golf together and I disappeared back to the cycle right in the middle of the game!”

No more tears?

“That was the worst! Your club flew right out of your hand and hit me in the head!”

After the story he’d just heard, how could they forgive each other and move on so quickly?

“Lucas? You okay?”

Crying. Suddenly Lucas couldn’t stop crying. How were Dipper and Mabel okay with this? How did they put up with losing each other again and again and again when he couldn’t even deal with losing his own brother _once_ let alone twice?

“Hey. Hey, Lucas.” Mabel had her hand on his shoulder -- she looked like Mabel again -- and her voice sounded funny. “Don’t cry. It’s okay. We’re okay.”

Lucas sniffed. He couldn’t believe he was doing this in front of them. He swore he wasn’t a crybaby anymore, really!

But he just watched two twins get a kind of closure he’d _never_ get because he was never going to find Claus in this field, never never never!

Dipper did a weird thing with his finger and pulled a box of tissues out of nowhere, which he tossed over to Lucas. He blew his nose, but his tears kept coming.

“It’s not easy to lose the people you care about,” Dipper said in a small voice. “I’ve seen Mabel and my other friends die so, so many times. It hurts every time. You’re not a crybaby for having trouble with that. That hurt never really goes away, but you _can_ move past it.”

How was he supposed to do that? Every time Lucas thought about Claus it filled him with so many conflicting emotions that he felt like he’d explode.

“Well, one way to do that is to make more friends!” Mabel squeaked. “Your heart is big enough to add new loved ones all the time. You’ve got other people you like, don’t you?”

Lucas nodded. There was Kumatora and Duster. They’d been through so much together that they were practically family. There was his dad Flint, although those feelings were pretty confusing to be honest. His dog Boney, of course. And so many others he’d met on his journeys who’d been kind to him.

“There you go!” Mabel clapped giddily. “I know no one can replace your brother. I feel the same way.” She elbowed Dipper in the side, which he must not have been expecting because he grunted and coughed out a cloud of golden glitter. “But they can soften the blow. Yknow what I mean?”

Lucas supposed he did know.

He sniffed again, and the next time he rubbed a tissue to his eyes, it came away dry.

“And then,” Dipper added, “someday, you’ll meet Claus again.”

Lucas blinked. Really?

"Really. The reincarnation cycle has a way of putting loved ones -- heh, especially twins -- close to each other." Dipper wrapped his arm around Mabel and lifted her into the air with him. "You won't be you, and he won't be him, but you'll be together again."

That helped, actually. It felt… reassuring.

“You’re in a weird, in-between place right now,” Dipper continued. “But you can’t chase the past for happiness. There’s only the future.”

Lucas would never find Claus in the sunflower field, no matter how long or hard he searched. He’d never get those answers, never have that closure. All he could do was try to live the best life he could.

And maybe that was enough, for now.

Mabel bapped Dipper on the head. "High and mighty talk from you, you big loser!"

"I said I learned a lesson -- I didn't say I was good at adhering to it!" Dipper yelped. He let go of Mabel and she dropped to the ground, laughing for the first time since she remembered who she was. Dipper laughed too, and Lucas found that he wanted to laugh too.

The pounding in his head started to let up. The dull ache in his chest started to fade.

“Thank you,” Lucas said out loud, and the other twins looked at him. “I feel a lot better.”

“Hey, no problem, kiddo,” Mabel said. She paused, watching him straighten up and take a deep breath. “Are you gonna be okay?”

Tough question. “I’ll try my best.”

“Fair enough. Where will you go now?”

Now that one was easy. “Home.”

“Good luck,” Dipper said, patting Lucas on the shoulder, and surprisingly it didn’t hurt at all. “Maybe we’ll meet again someday too.”

He grabbed Mabel’s hand and pulled her into the distance, bickering over how they were going to spend the little time they had together. Lucas took one last look at them -- at the twins laughing and playing among the sunflowers -- and walked away.

* * *

The room was still dark when Lucas opened his eyes.

He sat up in bed and clutched his head. He’d had that sunflower dream again, the same dream he’d had every night since Claus died. The same listlessness, the same endless search for answers. It haunted him day after day.

But this time was different. The memory was already fuzzy in his head, but he hadn’t been alone this time. Someone, or someones, had been there with him, and they’d told him he was going to be alright.

For some reason, he felt like he believed them.

The sun was starting to peek through the window, casting the room in an orange glow. Lucas got out of bed. Took off his pyjamas, put on a shirt and pants, looked in the mirror, and smiled. An orange haired ghost smiled back in the reflection, and it felt genuine.

As Lucas left the room, intent on finding Kumatora so they could hang out, he thought to himself that he could do this. He could move past the hurt.

And when the time came to meet his brother again, he’d be ready.


End file.
